Classmates

CLASSMATES
Starting with the beating torture of their classmate, Peter Lasota, broadcaster Adam Kostka and counterintelligence officer Karol Siennicki must find their way through a maze of corruption and betrayal that may end with an ecological disaster in northeast Poland.
Peter, the CEO of the Polish branch of the American investment firm, East Fund, found something sinister in an internal audit and decided to steal a billion and a half euros to keep the plans for the dirty bomb from being implemented.

CHAPTER 1

The abuse of buying and selling votes crept in and money began to play an important part in determining elections. Later on, this process of corruption spread in the law courts and to the army, and finally, when even the sword became enslaved by the power of gold, the republic was subjected to the rule of emperors.
~~~ Plutarch, Parallel Lives.

He couldn’t bear the next shock. He’d go unconscious or crazy – or die. The pain was unbearable. More kicks and blows from their fists rained down on his body and head, hitting parts of his anatomy struck many times before.
Paroxysms of pain followed every blow; waves of agony spread throughout all his muscles and bones, reaching deep inside his heart, organs and brain. He clenched his teeth with all his strength to keep from screaming. Nonetheless, his ears filled with moans and he didn’t know if they were his.
He barely made out the clipped curses and the panting of the two thugs kicking and beating him. He couldn’t understand why they hated him so much. When he got into the car in front of his rented house in the suburbs, they used a taser, paralyzing him. Then, they brought him here, dragged him to the third story, threw him into an empty room, and immediately set to whaling on him.
Before he could recover from the electric current of the taser, he curled up on the floor to try to fend off the thrashing kicks of their steel-toed boots. There hadn’t been a chance to ask them who they were and what they wanted from him. He knew the answer to the second question but he couldn’t spit it out, when their thumping and kicking left him breathless and unable to speak from the start.
His swollen, blood-filled eyes saw only the brightly lit rectangles of windows and an open balcony door. With what remained of his will, he focused his attention on those. With each successive kick, he tried to move a little more toward the balcony door. The guys pummeling him weren’t paying attention because they were just too busy picking spots for their aim: kidney, shins, groin, midsection, and head. They were really into what they were doing.
He couldn’t tell how long it took. He might have broken ribs and legs, or end up dead this way. He kept inching ever so slowly toward the balcony every time they laid into him, when the spasms weren’t too crippling.
This is how he almost reached the open door, the last kick smashing his head on the doorframe. Both guys stopped abruptly. He lay on his stomach and vaguely could make out flashes of light ahead of him.
The panting hatchet men tired. He heard the snap of a lighter and smelled cigarette smoke. Then, the sound of footsteps faded away: one of the gorillas probably went into the next room. He could hear him dial his cell phone. So they didn’t intend to kill him, at least, not yet. They were to wait for the final verdict.
Wracked with pain and barely able to breathe, he probably had broken ribs. He tried in vain to see what the flashes of light on the balcony, right in front of his head, were but was unable to focus his vision. He heard the goon’s faint voice from the next room but couldn’t understand the words, as if they were spoken in some foreign language. Or maybe his injured brain was no longer able to distinguish the meaning of things.
Finally, he was able to make out what the bouncing reflections of sunshine on the concrete balcony floor were: shards of broken glass. He could also see the railing’s narrowly spaced balusters: he’d never be able to squeeze between them.
When they dragged him out of the car, he had noticed thick bushes on the lawn in front of the ten-story building. He recalled the tall hedge began about two yards from the cinder block wall. If he pushed off from the balcony, there was a chance he’d fall atop the thicket. If he failed, it was better to die on impact rather than endure another minute of this torture.
Slowly, gingerly, he clawed his way on his belly through the threshold, as broken glass scrunched under him.
“Hey, where’re ya goin’?” a rough voice behind him growled.
He didn’t react and kept going, finally clutching the balustrade. He heard footsteps and laughter.
“Take your time! We’ll throw you over it when the time comes,” the thug standing on the threshold said, kicking him in the calf.
Groaning through clenched teeth, he started to inch up the bars, strenuously lifting his aching body. Behind him, there was silence: he imagined the man was curiously inspecting him. He got to his knees and seized the top of the railing.
“Okay, enough,” his assailant said, seizing his arm. “We’re goin’ back, pal.”
He spun around as fast as his broken ribs would allow and, moaning in pain, stabbed the face in front of him with a sharp piece of glass.
Howling, the thug clutched his face with both hands. Blood gushed through the man’s thick fingers, the fluid of the eyeball spurting out and the triangle of glass sticking out of the eye socket. The shriek of pain turned into a howl of despair; the wounded attacker staggered and fell backward.
The other heavy raced in from the next room. He glanced at his writhing, screaming, bleeding pal, and then toward the balcony, while pulling a gun from the holster under his arm.
There wasn’t a second to lose. Locking his knees, he stretched out and teetered over the balustrade for an instant. He pushed off with his hands, flinging himself off as far away from the building as possible. Plummeting down, arms spread-eagle, he could still hear the incapacitated mugger’s agonizing bellow. Out of the corner of his eye, he glimpsed the triggerman aiming at him over the railing.
Closing his eyes, he anticipated striking the ground. The noise of snapping branches and ripping clothes merged with the crack of two shots. He felt a blunt blow to his shoulder, as he passed through the closely entangled branches of the bushes and hit the ground. Darkness and silence encompassed him as severe pain swept through his entire body. The last sounds he heard were screams of horrified onlookers, a small child crying and a barking dog.